Remembering the Beginning of Festival Season with a Short Trip Back to the Electric Forest Starring our Good Friends, The String Cheese Incident

Review and Photos by Lori Sky Twohy

Imagine spending the weekend in a sea of trees surrounded by peaceful vibes and the beautiful music of The String Cheese Incident 3 nights in a row, not to mention all the other sounds of summer created by the likes of Beats Antique, Pretty Lights, Railroad Earth, Greensky Blue Grass, Lettuce and Jeff Austin and Friends and many, many more bands of the jam band and electronic scene? If you can, then you were either at Electric Forest, or you are dreaming of attending next year.

What I really love about a festival with SCI as the headliner is all the amazing costumes that people where every day. Who cares that Halloween is months away? Any excuse to get in touch with your inner freak is welcome at a Cheese event and Electric Forest is no exception (see photos here) from burlesque to fairies to stilt walkers and resonance, all characters are welcome.

But back to the music.

It seemed that every night of String Cheese was special in its own right. Friday condensed with an all night jam that lasts until 2am and included this awesome set list: Set 1: Let’s Go Outside, Song In My Head>Can’t Stop Now>MLT>I Wish, OTR, Joyful Sound>Bollymunster, Rosie. Set 2: Miss Browns Teahouse, Best Feeling, Shantytown>Way Back Home>Drums>Rollover, Rivertrance>Mysterious Ways>Rivertrance. Encore: Freedom Jazz Dance>Just One Story. With a set list like this on night one, it was hard to imagine what was in store for the following 2 nights.

Night 2 had an amazing set list too, but nothing could prepare us for Set 2, Song 2, on the Night 2…do you think there was some kind of hidden message behind the 2, 2, and 2? I have to wonder. Anyway…it wasn’t the forth of July yet, nor any other holiday and it wasn’t even the closing of the festival but what went down during desert dawn was beyond anything I have ever experienced at the MIDDLE of a festival. Fireworks, Fire trapeze artists, dancing girls in giant confetti filled plastic bubbles. It was a visual and audio smorgasbord for corner to corner of the venue and we felt privileged to be there.

Day 3 was the “bluegrass set” and what better way to celebrate then to bring out the guys from Greensky Bluegrass who played earlier in the day…what a treat that was. Greensky has been tearing up the festival scene lately and we couldn’t be happier about it. Another cool part about the blue grass day was that at beginning of the first set, Michael Travis played drum beats on Billy’s guitar. What an original treat.

We all know that a lot of festivals got bad weather this summer, but Electric Forest was beyond beautiful weather wise, even though rain WAS in the forecast. We all enjoyed a nice peaceful vibe synonymous with the SCI scene and we plan to be apart of this amazing fest every year…and we hope there are many.